Deadly quake rocks Guatemala, is felt in Mexico City

A police officer stands in the archway of a building damaged by a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in San Marcos, Guatemala, Nov. 7, 2012. The mountain village, some 80 miles from the epicenter, suffered much of the damage with some 30 homes collapsing in its center.

NBC News staff and wire reports — A deadly earthquake off the Pacific coast of Guatemala on Wednesday collapsed buildings, spurred landslides and shook cities as far away as San Salvador and Mexico City.

Guatemala President Otto Perez Molina said he had been informed 39 people were dead. Perez told an afternoon news conference that the dead are in the northwestern state of San Marcos near the Mexican border, where the majority of the damage occurred. Full story…

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A car remains under the ruins of a collapsed house in San Marcos, Guatemala, Nov. 7.

Moises Castillo / AP

Firefighters transport a wounded resident into a public hospital after he was injured in a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in San Marcos, Guatemala, Nov. 7. Many are missing after the strongest earthquake to hit Guatemala since a deadly 1976 quake that killed 23,000.

Moises Castillo / AP

A shoe lies atop a pile of sand at a sand mine, where people are feared buried, after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck in San Marcos, Guatemala, Nov. 7.